Socially conscious students

Monday, September 13, 2010

My students never cease to amaze me - they say things out of the blue that just make me see them in a new light.

I have one little boy, 7th grade, small, very cute, who just comes across as having a chip on his shoulder. He never smiles, usually scowls, and just has ATTITUDE.

But he did a beautiful job on his assignment - enlarging a drawing by Keith Haring - and he selected a rather difficult drawing to do. Did a great job. Spent a lot of time coloring. Showed a lot of dedication and commitment to producing quality work. So I gave him a lot of verbal encouragement, told him how great it was.

Til he started coloring the ocean, which he just scribbled in. We talked, I told him it was looking so beautiful but then his scribbly ocean was just making the picture look bad. He agreed, and the next day started doing a nice careful job coloring the ocean.

However - he started the ocean in orange. But many of the orange markers are drying out (as are the blue, hence the orange) - so he switched to purple. I told him ahead of time that purple over orange will not be a good look, but he went ahead. Happily and neatly coloring his ocean purple.

So in my cruise around the room, checking on student progress and helping as needed, I checked in with little Mr Attitude - and he looked up, gave me a sly smile, pointed at the brownish color made when the purple marker is over the orange, and he said, "The ocean is polluted."